5/20/12: A Two-Faced Lassie to Love


Many plants I grow have intriguing, often ridiculous pet names I simply can’t resist. Take, for example, “love-in-a-mist.”  A bird introduced this delicate, sun-loving flower to me years ago; I fell head-over-teakettle in love.  Just gazing at her undoes me.  She’s delectable, dressed in a blur of spiny, but touchable green ‘leaves’ no wider than a penciled dash, that, when massed, look exactly like, well, love, in a mist.  Then, to top it off, a glorious china-blue or white daisy-like, shaggy flower emerges triumphantly atop the fluff, the essence of charm.

I melt.

But wait! The fun’s not over. After blooming, she forms outrageous green and burgundy-striped horned, round seedpods, often an inch across, atop each stem. Long, lethal-looking spikes scream, “Don’t touch!” Pooh. It’s a sham.  They’re just as tame and absurdly charming as her flowering stage was.  Delightfully, this phase is called “devil-in-a-bush.”  Oh Lordy!  How could I NOT sigh, and succumb?

There’s more. This hardy annual (which ignores light frosts) cheerfully reseeds; just to be sure, though, I pounced on a seed packet of Nigella damascena, the enchantress’s proper name, at a garden center ten springs ago; after a nice, soaking rain I dribbled the little black dots around the sunniest parts of the garden in early April. Sure enough, in due course, (about 6 weeks,) up popped fuzzy stems, in clumpy, misty little clusters, and finally, the flowers (which, infrequently, can also be a gorgeous, soft pink). Gardening books recommend thinning; I don’t bother. Oh- too much water rots young plants; too little withers the foliage. Occasionally, a little snort of fast food, like Miracle-Gro, is appreciated. She lives cheap.

“Miss Jekyll,” a double form, is my favorite; look for that name on the seed packet.  (That prim, visually impaired little Victorian lady designed gently flowing gardens, full of lovely colors, textures and varying bloom times, revolutionizing the way people perceived their own plots.)

Nigella, by the way, has an uncanny knack for knowing where she looks good.  She loves my Japanese blood grass, partners with ‘Autumn Joy’ sedum, snuggles coyly among the roses, cheerfully enhances my woolly thyme, and looks smashing against purple basil’s rich essence. But here’s the thing: this lovely, wispy, whimsical beauty chooses. I don’t. She moves exactly where she pleases, when she pleases. I accept her choices, even if some are unconventional.  She doesn’t care a fig for color wheels, preferring instead to expand my horizons, introducing me to novel color marriages I never would have imagined. I can’t remember when we’ve ever disagreed. But Madame absolutely refuses to be transplanted; she sinks a very long, but easily extracted taproot.  If you have your knickers in a twist about her decisions, simply tug her gone.

When those amazing seedpods dry to a pale parchment and actually crunch, they’re ‘done.’ Biggish breezes will eventually snuffle through your beds; the dotty black seeds will gleefully escape their pods and catch a ride to somewhere nearby, brightening up that place.

Feel like sharing a good thing? Pluck a parchment pod or three, and pop them into a zip-lock bag; make someone you love happy. Tell them to scatter some seeds over damp earth to, er, suggest where these babies might want to grow up. Mama Nature will think about it, and maybe agree with you, or select a spot that she likes better.

Her surprising choices make each season an adventure.

This gem keeps on coming, has a quirky sense of humor, is never sick, never bug-whacked, loves to sunbathe, and is always good for a giggle. Flexible, she doesn’t mind if her soil is so-so. Best of all, once I’m accepted, she’ll never dump me.

This, fellow gardeners, is true love.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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